


mist

by nausicaa_of_phaeacia



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, Old Married Couple, cosmic bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 20:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9675908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_of_phaeacia/pseuds/nausicaa_of_phaeacia
Summary: Even with the illness, she looks the same. Okay, almost the same, but the same kind of beautiful. Sometimes, when he wakes up in the early morning and she‘s already awake, waiting for him to open his eyes, smiling the way she always did, he almost doesn‘t remember she‘s sick.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I didn't mean for this to be sad per se.   
> I've never written anything, really anything like this, so I don't know if it's actually any good. Don't read it if you don't want anyone to die.  
> Please don't kill me. I don't know why I wrote this.

Even with the illness, she looks the same. Okay, almost the same, but the same kind of beautiful. Sometimes, when he wakes up in the early morning and she‘s already awake, waiting for him to open his eyes, smiling the way she always did, he almost doesn‘t remember she‘s sick.  
It makes him feel angry and grateful at the same time. After all, they got to spend more almost thirty years together, and that‘s something, especially in their line of work, and especially since Coulson never would have thought that someone like Daisy would ever fall for him in the first place. 

"Breakfast?," he asks after kissing her good-morning, and she nods, that sparkle in her eye when she‘s amused with him, when she thinks he‘s being a dork or a hopeless romantic or just very sweet, and he makes an effort to get out of bed as quickly as possible (well, as quickly as his back lets him). 

He makes the same hot chocolate as he would every Sunday, except that it‘s a Wednesday and he‘s been making it every morning for the past few weeks now. Daisy‘s time is limited, she has officially been given a medical expiry date, and he wants to – he just wants to make her hot chocolate as often as he can. 

It‘s been a tough time. Superficially, of course, it looks like nothing is wrong with her. The disease she contracted was a lab experiment, set free through an explosion during a mission, and to be fair, Daisy‘s running stats aren‘t the same at 59 as they were when she joined S.H.I.E.L.D., or when she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. for the second time. 

The whole thing is just very unfair. Of course, Daisy was at the center of it all, directing her team, like she always did, and saving people from the collapsing building. And yet, she‘s the only one who got in contact with the virus. She calls it a good thing, because it means she got to free six people from the complex nearly unscathed. She keeps smiling at the fact, and he‘s having a hard time smiling back, but he does. 

She even smiles as she signs the DNR. Obviously, she doesn‘t plan on going to the hospital any time soon, she‘s well able to take care of herself for the most part, except that she‘s weaker and slower and just very, very tired. But she‘s got him, and she‘s got Robin, and there‘s not a lot she needs, if she‘s being honest. There‘s his hot chocolate and there‘s all the Allende he reads to her, they watch all those silent films, playing some of Coulson‘s jazz records in the background. And it‘s okay, because that‘s all she ever wanted, to be with him in a quiet place with lots of windows, and they are good at being slow together.

"Are you going to be okay?," she asks him every day, and he always nods and kisses her forehead, like there‘s nothing in the world she should be worried about, not even dying, not even leaving him behind. She still needs his reply every day, like that’s the one thing keeping her going, like that’s what allows her to fall asleep at night. And he can do that, kissing Daisy’s forehead is definitely something he can do, especially if that’s what’s making her feel safe.

One evening, as they’re sitting by the fireplace, listening to Ella Fitzgerald with their tea, Coulson suddenly says, "I lied."  
She looks at him and knows.  
"I know," she says.  
But she’s smiling, and it makes him want to cry, but he resists and walks over to her instead, goes to sit on the smaller armchair next to the wheelchair, goes to hold her hand and look into her eyes like that’s always been his job. Maybe it has. 

On Saturday, when he wakes up, she leans in and kisses him, slowly, but deeply, and he remembers the way they used to make out on the base, hiding out in one closet or another, giggling because they could have been caught anytime. This is the same, this is just the next chapter of those kisses, he thinks, and it’s oddly comforting. If he’s being honest, all he ever needed was the first time Daisy kissed him, he remembers thinking: I can die happy now back then, almost thirty years ago.  
"Let’s go together," he blurts out, and it’s more than a mere suggestion, not an offer, not a complaint, more like a promise. She looks at him, eyes wide, about to protest, because she doesn’t want this to be about her, she doesn’t want to be selfish, but then she sees his eyes. He looks very serious, but not upset. He’s smiling, like this is the best idea in the world. Like it’s the only good solution to all this. And that’s not really a lie.  
She nods, and Phil draws a deep breath of relief.  
"I’ll ask Robin," she whispers, because Robin will understand, because Robin will know what to do.

But first, they schedule a small dinner party, on a Sunday, obviously, inviting only those they invited to their wedding twenty-something years ago. There’s music and dancing, there’s loads of food, because Coulson still makes a knockout casserole, and his antipasti are notoriously excellent, and there’s a lot of talking and laughing and card games. Their eyes meet across the room at one point, and it’s like a silent agreement, it’s like they’re saying: we did a great job, darling, you are amazing, it’s like this is just another task they’ve accomplished brilliantly, as a team, and suddenly, Coulson doesn’t feel sad. He doesn’t feel sad because nothing’s changing, not if you look at things closely enough. They’re still the same people, they’re still here, and they’re still together, bawling their eyes out laughing at Mack’s jokes, raising their glasses to everything they believe in, rolling their eyes at each other, and sending ghost kisses across the room whenever they discover each other through the crowd. 

It’s on Tuesday that they go. They haven’t told anyone, because that would only make things sad, and the dinner party is going to be enough to explain things, it’s going to be fond enough of a memory to be remembered by, like all their dinner parties have. Robin drives them to the secret government lab on the far end of the city in a small car with tinted windows, smiling as Daisy makes out with Coulson on the back seat. They have been here many times for one mission or another, they know this place like their back pocket, and Coulson steals another kiss in a dark corner just before they enter the elevator. Robin holds the door.

There’s a bed in the molecule chamber, prepared especially for them, and Coulson wonders how Robin managed to pull all these strings, because obviously, this is still technically illegal. He helps her out of the wheelchair and rest her head on the pillow, then walks around the bed to climb in from the other side. Robin goes to hug them, saying her good-byes, and it’s comfortingly honest and simple, like they are going to meet again some day. She tells them to knock on the glass walls when they are ready, then leaves the room to give them some time to themselves.

Daisy’s eyes fill with tears, but she’s swallowing them down. He takes her hand. "It’s okay," he tells her, because that’s what she’s silently asking him, "eighty-two is far more than I would ever have expected," and it makes her chuckle and the sound of it makes his heart flutter with butterflies. "Thank you," she replies, tears all gone, all smiles and beaming brightness as she touches his cheek. He pulls her in for a kiss, and she pulls him back in for another one, like she always does, then nods. They exchange a smile, and with a last moment of hesitation, just to check that this is what she wants, that these are her terms, he looks at her before knocking on the glass. 

Robin appears behind the window, outside the room, waving at them from behind the glass, smiling. They both nod at her, and Robin lowers her head, like she’s doing a small bow, then walks over to the control panel to press the button. Coulson grabs Daisy's hand, like he’s reassuring her he’s not scared, and her smile is the last thing he sees, and that’s really okay. It’s really more than he ever bargained for, and he smiles back at her like it was an honour, like sharing all this with her is the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

Robin hits the button and the glass chamber briefly lights up, and they’re gone together. When the young woman returns to the room, all that’s left in the chamber is a tiny bit of dust, Coulson and Daisy and the bed and their love all atomized, dissolved, in the air and around and everywhere. She unseals the chamber, crouches down to touch the dust on the floor with her palm, like she’s wishing them a safe trip. She smiles, because that’s exactly what they would have wanted her to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading. ♥


End file.
